Jessie Burton - The Muse

‘Don Alfonso,’ said Harold, putting out his own hand. ‘We meet at last.’

He spoke good English, and Olive saw echoes of Isaac in the man’s face — but there was something inherently theatrical about the Don that his son did not share. Despite his flashiness, there was an intelligence in Alfonso’s small eyes; calculation and black humour. She thought of the story Teresa had told about him, and tried to quell her anxiety.

‘Gregorio, give Señora Schloss our offerings.’ One of the boys hopped forward. ‘Almond cake and a bottle of good port,’ said Alfonso.

Sarah took the presents. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘Are you settled in well?’

‘Very well.’

Alfonso peered past Harold into the darkness of the hallway. ‘ Díos mio , the kitten has grown into a cat,’ he said, knocking one heel to the other in a cod-military gesture. The clipping heels of his boots and the creak of patent raised the hairs on Olive’s skin. She looked back to see Teresa scowling in the dark.

‘Still so scared of me, Tere?’ Alfonso said, in Spanish. ‘I don’t know why. I’ve heard about your claws.’ The younger men laughed. ‘She’s not giving you trouble, I hope?’

Harold glanced at Teresa, who stared at him with round black eyes. ‘None at all,’ he said.

‘Well, let me know if she is.’ Alfonso looked up at the finca’s many windows, every one illuminated with tiny, flickering flames. ‘Señor Schloss, I hope we are not going to be burned alive. I thought this house was blessed with electricity?’

‘We wanted a little atmosphere tonight, Don Alfonso. Please come in.’

‘I brought Gregorio and Jorge — you don’t mind if they come too?’

‘Not at all. Everyone is welcome.’

The three men moved past Olive and her mother, Jorge’s gaze lingering a little too long on Sarah.

‘Is that brother of yours here?’ Jorge asked Teresa.

‘Maybe. But he won’t be talking to you,’ she said.

In total, sixty-seven residents of Arazuelo came to the party. The presence of this small family from London and Vienna imbued the locals with a carnival, topsy-turvy feeling. There was a permissiveness in the air, as if a taboo had broken apart, and its scent was going to drown them all. Don Alfonso stayed in a corner of one room — a few people came up to him, but generally he was left alone.

The guests wrote their names in a book that Harold produced. Some inscribed their signatures eagerly, happy to be included in this cosmopolitan event, with its dancing lights and jazz music, and the smell of oleanders in every room. They jotted short messages of approval or goodwill — buen vino or Dios bendiga . Others were more cautious, looking worried about being permanently embedded in this foreign book, as if it might be a politically controversial gesture. Olive remembered Adrián, the murdered boy from Malaga, Isaac’s concerns about what was going to happen to the country, and wondered if they had a point. Nevertheless, she wrote down her own name, directly underneath those of Teresa and Isaac.

Having drunk three glasses of champagne, Olive sensed the ghost of the boy moving through the rooms. She sat back in her wicker chair, and saw his bloodied body drag itself between the guests. She imagined there was a determination to their drinking, their dancing, their shouts and claps, as if they were pushing him back to the land of the dead, to reclaim this house for the living.

A woman wore a long satin dress the colour of a dawn mushroom. The candle flames sparked a glint in a brass cufflink, lifted with a crystal glass of moonshine. Teresa scurried hither and thither, always with a tray of drinks, or some meats and cheeses, or slices of cake. She was studiedly avoiding her father. The room was full of voices, the music pulsed from the gramophone in the corner — and there was Sarah, in her double-faced purple dress, flitting between the groups. She laid her hand on Isaac’s arm, and made him laugh. People turned to her as they might to a beacon of light.

Olive watched Isaac wherever he went, feeling her attraction sing up to the wooden beams above her head, down to the slosh of champagne in her glass. Her curls had begun to droop and she tugged them nervously, worried she was walking around with a half-hairstyle. Now he was deep in conversation with the local doctor, looking sombre at something the man had said. He too had not spoken to his father. He was wearing that perfect pair of dark-blue trousers, cut close to the line of his body; a dark linen jacket, a blue shirt. She imagined what colour his skin was underneath. When was he going to turn round and notice her? She touched the emeralds around her neck and downed a fourth champagne. The fumbling child she’d been all her life was soon to be a spectre; one more glass would flush that kid away.

Two of the guests had brought guitars, and from their fingers cascaded a confident duet, note after perfect note, up and down the fretboards. People cheered when they heard it, and someone lifted the needle off the gramophone, scratching the record. There was a moment’s worried hush, but Harold, very drunk by now, roared with approval and shouted, ‘Let them play! I want to hear this magic! ¡Quiero oír el duende! ’

At this, the party seemed to surge as one. The father and son who’d brought the guitars knew flamenco songs as well as the popular canciones , and they played a couple, a wide ring of people around them, before a woman in her sixties stepped forward, and began to sing, opening her mouth to let forth a soaring sound of pain and freedom. For a second time that night Olive felt the hairs on her neck rise up. The woman had the room under complete control. She sang, clapping her hands in a fast, percussive rhythm, and there were shouts around the room of ‘ ¡Vamos! ’, people stamping their feet and crying out in admiration.

Gregorio whirled two little girls around the room, and they screamed with delight as the guitars and the singing grew ever more fevered. The woman’s voice was like an ancient sound come to life, and Olive stood up, drinking down a fifth glass of fizz — except no, this wasn’t champagne, this was a spirit of some sort, a firewater that set her insides burning. The woman’s voice was rough and plaintive and perfect, and outside the night deepened, and moths flickered to die amongst the lanterns. In this room of strangers, Olive had never felt more at home.

Her father was calling that it was time for the fireworks. ‘ Fuegos artificiales! ’ he bellowed in a terrible accent, and Olive’s eyes roved the room for Isaac. She spied him slipping through the door. The crowd began to move into the back of the house, out onto the veranda to watch the fireworks exploding over the orchard. Olive stopped, dazed by the flow of people in the corridor. Then she saw him going in the other direction, crossing the hallway and out of the front door. She was mystified — why was he running away from the centre of the world?

She began to follow him, stumbling onwards, away from the light of the house and into the pitch dark of the February night. Above her, the sky was soaked with stars. The moon was high but she lost sight of him, and her blood was quickly cooling, but on she went, out of the rusted main gates onto the dirt path towards the village, stumbling on stones, cursing that she had been idiotic enough to come out in heels.

A hand clamped on her mouth. An arm locked round her neck and dragged her to the side of the path. She wriggled and kicked, but whoever had her pinned had a strong grip. Olive brought up her hands and began tugging; she opened her mouth to bite hard on the fingers that wouldn’t let her breathe.

‘ Mierda! ’ said a voice, and Olive was released.